After imposing a ceasefire in Gaza, blocking Israel from defeating Hamas decisively, the Donald Trump administration is making further shifts to advance U.S. imperialist interests in the Middle East. This includes pursuing profits from its expanding presence as well as pressing capitalist regimes there to ally with Washington in pushing back inroads by Beijing, its main, but not only, rival.
Tehran-backed Hamas is taking advantage of the ceasefire to rebuild its battered forces and prepare future anti-Jewish pogroms. The Nazi-like group has no intention of backing off from its goal of the destruction of Israel and the elimination of the Jews there.
While Washington flexes its military and economic might, weaker capitalist powers, in the Middle East and beyond, are maneuvering to promote the interests of their own ruling classes in the new “great game” of who gets the most plunder from the natural resources and labor in the region.
All this is reflected in what the White House is trying to put together with the so-called Board of Peace, which ostensibly will oversee the next stages of “development” in Gaza and, if Washington has its way, well beyond. All those who accepted membership on the board are awarded with a three-year term, which becomes permanent with a $1 billion contribution to the workings of the board.
Trump also invited the Turkish and Qatari governments — key supporters of Hamas — to serve. Despite disagreements with Washington’s concessions to Hamas and its allies, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to serve.
“We did not tell Netanyahu in advance about the composition of the executive committee,” U.S. officials told Israel’s N12 TV-news Jan. 17. “He did not expect there to be representatives from Turkey and Qatar, but Gaza is now our show, not his show.”
Hamas keeps its AK-47s?
Trump has repeatedly said that Hamas must disarm or “there will be hell to pay.” In today’s world, Israel is the only force willing and capable of disarming Hamas. But the Trump administration — like the Joseph Biden administration before it — continues to demand Israel refrain from completely defeating the Jew-hating group.
Hamas is of little concern to the U.S. government, except to the extent it interferes with the stability Washington needs to maximize its economic and political interests.
U.S. officials told the Times of Israel that Hamas can keep its AK-47s, because “Gaza needs to have basic policing.” The editors call this “a novel stance indeed,” given that those weapons are used to crush opposition from Palestinians in Gaza who dare criticize Hamas. Not to mention their use by Hamas death squads in the Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom that slaughtered 1,200 people in Israel.
The Biden administration had a policy of freezing weapons deliveries to Israel when it disagreed with its war moves, and it is likely future U.S. administrations will do the same. Netanyahu told the Economist Jan. 16 that over the next 10 years he plans to build up Israel’s weapons industry to cover all their needs, reducing their reliance on U.S. military aid from $3.8 billion a year to zero.
U.S. challenges to Beijing’s influence
Since at least 2013, when it launched its Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has steadily increased its “footprint” in the Middle East and northern Africa. While U.S. oil production has expanded, Washington’s purchase of oil there has fallen substantially. By 2023 China was the largest export market for six countries in the region — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.
In 2024 alone, state-owned Chinese companies and banks committed $39 billion to infrastructure projects, mainly in Saudi Arabia, Iran and United Arab Emirates.
In July 2025 Tehran and Beijing announced plans to electrify and modernize much of the 600-mile-long Sarakhs-Razi railroad, which connects Turkmenistan with Turkey via Iran. This would lessen Beijing’ dependence on its maritime trade routes through which it imports the vast majority of its oil.
Four months later, Washington countered this move by announcing an agreement with Armenia and Azerbaijan to construct a transit corridor to Turkey, tongue-in-cheek dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Tranquility, which will bypass both Iran and Russia.
Washington reaches out to Ankara
As part of advancing U.S. relations with the new regime of Ahmad al-Sharaa in Syria, as well as its ally in Ankara, Washington has turned a blind eye to the regime’s massacre of Druze, Alawites and Kurds there. Washington gave a green light to the Syrian Arab Army’s offensive that has pushed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces out of areas they controlled for over a decade.
This was only possible because Washington abruptly ended its close collaboration with Kurdish forces in battling against Islamic State during the civil war in Syria, a collaboration always opposed by the Turkish rulers.
But those days are now over. “The original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired,” Thomas Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, said Jan. 19.
Meanwhile, a U.S. naval combat group led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln carrying thousands of troops arrived in Middle East waters near the Arabian Sea, the Pentagon reported Jan. 25.
During the bloody slaughter of protesters by the reactionary rulers in Iran, President Trump had threatened military action against Tehran if it carried out mass executions. But the U.S. show of military might is not aimed at aiding working people in Iran or in overthrowing the hated Islamic Republic. Its goal is a deal with Tehran to promote “security and stability” for U.S. imperialism’s operations in the region.